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Pre-dawn raids that netted guns, drugs and alleged gang members were the culmination of more than a year of police work, but also the latest dramatic link to Mayor Rob Ford and an alleged crack cocaine scandal that has embroiled city hall for almost a month.

The investigation — dubbed Project Traveller — saw dozens of officers in tactical gear from 17 police agencies execute 39 search warrants in Toronto, Windsor and Edmonton. It has implicated some of those connected to the mayor in photographs and who come from a neighbourhood central to the controversy over a video that appears to show Ford smoking what seems to be crack cocaine.

Police officers used battering rams and “flash-bangs,” and kicked in doors to carry out the warrants, leaving in their wake broken glass, splintered wood, angry black scars on apartment floors and stunned families.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said the mother of 20-year-old Monir Kassim after police rammed in their 390 Dixon Rd. apartment door at about 5 a.m. Officers later arrested Kassim outside a nearby coffee shop. “We never had any police problems before with him.

“Of course I’m scared,” she said. “They kicked in my door. This has never happened in my life.”

Police say that to date they have seized 40 firearms and $3 million worth of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, crystal meth and others. Search warrants show that police were also seeking cellphones, looking for audio and video recordings, in the multi-jurisdictional sweep.

The search to dismantle the criminal gang known as the Dixon City Bloods or the Dixon Goonies focused on a Dixon Rd. apartment block in Etobicoke that has been a focus of intense attention since sources told the Star Ford had blurted out to staff members that the video could be found on the 17th floor.

Ten minutes northwest of the complex, police arrested Muhammad Khattak at his Mercury Rd. home around 7:30 a.m. and carted away evidence, including what appeared to be a Toshiba laptop and several files.

Khattak, 19, is one of three men who appears in a now infamous photograph with Ford — obtained by the Star from the same man who showed two Star reporters the video. In the photo, one of Ford’s arms is wrapped around 21-year-old Anthony Smith, who was gunned down on King St. near Loki Lounge in March.

Khattak was also shot that night, but survived.

No one at his family home answered questions asked through broken glass panes on Thursday morning. Khattak’s mother had earlier told the Star her son was good man, and that she had no idea how he and Smith ended up shot that night.

He appeared in court Thursday for a bail hearing on charges of trafficking in a substance held out to be marijuana and trafficking cocaine for the benefit of a criminal organization. After a four-hour hearing, Justice of the Peace Neil Burgess remanded him in custody.

Nathan Gorham, Khattak’s lawyer, said his client was extremely disappointed that he was going to spend his first night in jail. He said Khattak has no record and is handicapped and in extreme pain from being shot in the back and arm. Gorham said he will be speaking to the family Friday and plans to bring a bail review application to Superior Court.

At Finch court on Thursday afternoon, Crown attorney Paul Renwick told the presiding justice of the peace there were nine defendants already in the building and 35 were expected, some en route from Windsor.

Raids were also conducted in Edmonton, local police confirmed, but it is not known how many people, if any, were arrested.

Earlier, police apprehended a 23-year-old man in Fort McMurray and charged him in Smith’s murder.

Renwick said he was prepared to set dates for 40 special bail hearings, which will run between two and two-and-a-half hours.

Not included in Thursday’s raids was a home on Windsor Rd. near the Dixon apartment complex, a suspected crack house where the photograph was taken. It does not appear that any of the four residents of that home, Elena Johnson and Fabio, Lina and Mario Basso, were arrested.

At least two of those living at the address have a criminal history. Johnson was convicted of trafficking cocaine in 2011 and Fabio Basso was convicted of possessing a prohibited weapon in 2005.

Police remain tight-lipped about what the investigation might reveal about Ford and the elusive video.

According to sources with knowledge of the investigation, the existence of the video was caught up in surveillance conducted as part of Project Traveller — an unintended discovery by police while investigating gang activity that took place before the Star first published reports of Ford’s alleged substance abuse problems in March. Persons of interest to the investigation discussed the iPhone video, sources say.

In early May, two Star reporters viewed a video that appears to show the mayor smoking crack. They watched it three times, independently, on a cellphone shown them inside a car outside 320 Dixon Rd. — one of the apartment buildings where Thursday’s raids were centered.

The video showed the mayor appearing to inhale from a glass crack pipe and making homophobic and racial remarks. The Star does not have a copy of the video and has not been able to verify its authenticity.

On Thursday afternoon, Police Chief Bill Blair refused to confirm or deny whether the investigation implicated Ford in any way, saying that evidence could only appropriately be disclosed in the course of court proceedings.

“The law is absolutely crystal clear on this, about precisely what the legal requirement and the constraints on the police are . . . Your interest in this and even the public’s interest in this does not change the law,” Blair said. “The mechanism for the appropriate and legal disclosure of evidence is in a court of law.”

Blair was adamant that only those on a “need-to-know” level were briefed about the investigation, which Blair said did not include Ford or his staff.

Police spokesperson Mark Pugash confirmed that the mayor’s acting chief of staff, Earl Provost, called him Thursday morning for information on the raids and was given the same scant public details as everyone else.

Provost was recently promoted from within the mayor’s office, one of several new appointments since allegations of the crack video surfaced on May 16 in Gawker and the Star.

A total of six staff members have left Ford’s office since May 23, when former chief of staff Mark Towhey was fired. Sources and reports said the senior staffer had told the mayor to seek help for his health.

Since then, the mayor has been inundated with questions from reporters, who have crowded every public appearance and congregated regularly outside his glass-enclosed office to ask the mayor pointed questions about the allegations — which he has repeatedly rebuffed.

Later, Blair offered no such denial when asked directly at Thursday’s news conference why he wouldn’t give one: “My responsibility is to collect the evidence and not to make pronouncements on what the evidence means,” he said.

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